Many businesses have dedicated telecommunication systems that enable computers, telephones, facsimile machines and the like to communicate with each other through a private network and with remote locations via a communications service provider. In most buildings, the dedicated communications system is hard wired using telecommunication cables that contain conductive wires. In such hard wired systems, dedicated wires are coupled to individual service ports throughout the building. Conventionally, the wires from the dedicated service ports extend through the walls of the building to a communications closet or closets. The communications lines from the interface hub of a main frame computer or network and the telecommunication lines from external telecommunication service providers may also terminate within a communications closet. The communications line may comprise, for example, a communications cable or patch cord that contains four twisted pairs of conductors.
A patching system is typically used to interconnect the various telecommunication lines within a communications closet. In a communications patching system, the telecommunication lines are terminated within a communications closet in an organized manner. The organized terminations of the various lines are provided via the structure of the communications closet. A mounting frame having one or more racks is typically located in a communications closet. The communications lines terminate on the racks, as is explained below.
Referring to FIG. 1, a typical prior art rack 10 is shown. The rack 10 retains a plurality of patch panels 12 that are mounted to the rack 10. On each of the patch panels 12 are located port assemblies 14. The illustrated port assemblies 14 each contain six telecommunication connector ports 16 (e.g., RJ-45 ports), although other numbers of ports are possible (e.g., one, four, or eight ports per port assembly, etc.). Other types of patch panels are known, including patch panels with optical fiber ports (e.g., SC, ST, and FC ports) and copper wire ports.
Each telecommunication connector port 16 may be hard wired to a respective one of the communications lines. Accordingly, each communications line terminates on a patch panel 12 in an organized manner. In small patch systems, communications lines may terminate on the patch panels of the same rack. In larger patch systems, multiple racks may be used. Interconnections between the various communications lines are made using patch cords 20. Both ends of each patch cord 20 are terminated with connectors 22, such as, for example, an RJ-45 or RJ-11 connector. One end of a patch cord 20 is connected to a connector port 16 of a first communications line terminating at a first patch panel and the opposite end of the patch cord 20 is connected to a connector port 16 of a second communications line terminated at a second patch panel. By selectively connecting the various lines with patch cords 20, any combination of communications lines can be interconnected.
In many businesses, employees are assigned their own computer network access number exchange so that the employee can interface with a main frame computer or computer network. When an employee changes office locations, it may not be desirable to provide that employee with new exchange numbers. Rather, to preserve consistency in communications, it may be preferred that the exchanges of the telecommunication connection ports in the employee's old office be transferred to the communications ports in the employee's new office. To accomplish this task, patch cords in a telecommunication closet are rearranged so that the employee's old exchanges are now received in his/her new office.
As employees move and/or change positions, and/or as new lines are added and subtracted, the patch cords in a typical communications closet are rearranged quite often. The interconnections of the various patch cords in a communications closet are often logged in either a paper or computer based log. However, technicians may neglect to update the log each and every time a change is made. Thus, the log may become less than 100% accurate and a technician may not have a way of reading where each of the patch cords begins and ends. Accordingly, when a technician needs to change a patch cord, it may be necessary for the technician to manually trace that patch cord between two connector ports. To perform a manual trace, the technician locates one end of a patch-cord and then manually follows the patch cord until he/she finds the opposite end of that patch cord. Once the two ends of the patch cord are located, the patch cord can be positively identified.
It may take a significant amount of time for a technician to manually trace a particular patch cord, particularly within a collection of other patch cords. Furthermore, manual tracing may not be completely accurate and technicians may accidentally go from one patch cord to another during a manual trace. Such errors may result in misconnected telecommunication lines which must be later identified and corrected. Also, it may be difficult to identify the correct port to which a particular patch cord end should be connected or disconnected. Thus, ensuring that the proper connections are made can be very time-consuming, and the process is prone to errors in both the making of connections and in keeping records of the connections.
One existing method of detecting the connector ports that a patch cord is connected to utilizes a mechanical switch in each connector port of a patch panel. Each mechanical switch is configured to detect insertion and removal of a patch cord connector within and from a respective connector port. For example, when a patch cord connector is inserted within a connector port of a patch panel, the mechanical switch in the connector port is closed and a signal is generated. It is assumed that when two consecutive connections are made between two different patch panels, a connection exists between the connector ports via the patch cord. The advantage of this method is that special patch cords are not required. Unfortunately, however, this method cannot confirm that there is an actual connection between two connector ports and a patch cord. For example, two separate patch cords may have connectors that were inserted within respective connector ports of two patch panels sequentially in time. The conventional method would assume that the two connector ports were connected by the same patch cord, which would be erroneous. Accordingly, a need exists for accurately and quickly detecting and identifying patch cord connections in a communications system.